Page 2 of Wolfsbane

Now, there was birdsong in the distance.

Turning, I jogged back toward the clearing, taking care to keep an ear out, just in case. There were two more goons, I knew. I hadn’t found Marcus or Dave, and they were constantly at Grant’s side, so they had to be somewhere.

Halfway back, I heard a sound of pain, but I knew the throat it came from, and it wasn’t Grant or one of his assholes.

No.

I would know that voice anywhere.

Aleks.

Without thought, I started wrenching my clothes off, tearing the shirt in my rush, but it didn’t matter. A few seconds later, I was streaking through the woods in my wolf skin, as fast as four legs could carry me.

There was no Grant in the clearing, though.

There was only Aleks, on his knees, and for a moment, the pose mimicked too closely the men I had just killed, and the sight sent panic through me.

But Aleks wasn’t bleeding from the neck; he was holding his belly.

I rushed to his side, taking only a moment to note the body of Marcus lying beside him, because of course my brother hadn’t gone down without a fight, not even to Grant, who was one of the dirtiest fighters I’d ever known.

No surprise from a man whose own brother had maimed him. Perhaps he hid it well from the rest of the pack, but I wasn’t like all of the others. I wasn’t innocent. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen the effects of such a wound. I recognized the way Grant moved. The way he’d gotten soft curves around his face and middle.

No doubt Reeve hadn’t wanted any nieces and nephews competing with his own line for control of the pack.

I sniffed at Aleks, trying to assess how deep the wound went. Whether his innards had been opened up, or if this was a wound he could heal. Suddenly, though, I smelled strangers. Crescent wolves.

Without my permission, I was growling, baring my teeth in the direction of the newcomers.

Heel, dog, the voice of my trainer filled my mind, and I jerked back a step.

The wolf wasn’t so willing to back down, though, not even at the memory of the electric cattle prod they had used to punish me when I didn’t rein in my instincts.

Aleks was in danger. Aleks was brother. Alpha. Friend.

Aleks was my only hope for a better, brighter future.

Without him, there was nothing.

But Aleks was stopping me from attacking, and then there was Grant.

Grant.

I snarled and had to work to hold myself from jumping right into the fray when the Crescent alpha stepped forward, because Grant smelled of Aleks’s blood. Him. He had attacked Aleks, had tried to⁠—

Movement snatched my attention off the fight and Grant, and there was a man trying to approach my injured brother. I growled, deep and long, baring my teeth at him. He would not hurt Aleks. No one would⁠—

“Viktor,” Aleks choked out around a mouthful of blood that made something inside me curl up and whine. Fail. I had failed. Aleks was dying and— “The city wolves do not mean us harm.”

I backed into Aleks, continuing to face the strange wolf, until the scent of ozone filled the air like a malignant cancer. Magic. I growled despite Aleks’s reassurance, especially when he gasped.

But then . . . the scent of pain faded almost completely between one breath and the next, and I realized that the strange wolf had healed my brother.

Witchwolf, what was left of my frayed mind supplied. The witchwolf had healed Aleks. The whole reason we’d been sent here; Ermengarde’s lust to have a witchwolf of her own.

I suspected, somehow, that she didn’t want this one.

He was too clever, too confident, and most of all, he had a mind of his own. He would never follow the orders of a power-hungry witch.